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Donnie Yen makes this a watchable film

Philip Drake | 03/05/2002

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Crystal Hunt was a fairly poor film, perhaps due to lack of budget, but it was none the less an average film that you wouldn't mind renting, which is what I did.Donnie Yen makes this film and his fights against regulars such as Micheal Woods( whom was the muscular fighter that fought against Donnie Yen on the top of the building at the end of 'In Line of Duty 4') makes this film fairly watchable and merely a collection filler rather than a centre piece of a film collection."

3 stars for action, 1 star for everything else.

James | Texas | 01/29/2000

(2 out of 5 stars)

"3 stars for action, 1 star for everything else. I had a hard time getting into this movie at any point. From the start you can tell that it is a substandard prodution. From the poorest excuse for a plot to the bad voice overs the entire movie just has a very low budget air about it. Normaly I don't pay much attention to plot. I've enjoyed many martial arts movies with less plot, but there something about the way this one is delivered that makes it less forgiveble here. Maby its the bad background music. Now if you can get past all that(not to difficult for big martial arts fans) you can get the important part, the fighting. In this Crystal Hunt does alright. There are a lot of people fighting in this movie. This kinda' gives the fighing a bit of uneveness, ranging from WOW to Eh, depending on who is involved. Donnie Yen is realy an amazing talent and does get a couple of good fights, but is better seen in the "Iron Monkey". In the end my advice is ,unless you seen everything else out there or have some special interest in it, you can find something better."

Good action, bad movie

morgoth | omaha, NE | 05/06/2008

(3 out of 5 stars)

"This is a really horrible movie, but it has fight scenes with Donnie Yen, Ken Lo, Michael Woods, and John Salvitti. The story is stupid and not even worth mentioning, so I may as well go over the action, because there's lots of it. The fights are good, but the directing in the fights is pretty bad. Just go into it knowing that it will be ultra cheesy, and maybe you will like it.

The movie starts with cameos from Chu Tiet Wo (villain from Jade Claw), Gordon Liu and Leung Kar Yan. They are all involved in a badly done shootout scene, and we don't see them again. They must have done this scene when shooting Cheetah on Fire. These 2 films were shot back to back (or probably at the same time), and have the same actors.

The first fight has Donnie Yen beating up a group of people. Very good, but only about 15 to 20 seconds long.

Next up Donnie Yen and Sibelle Hu fight a few guys. Another 20 second fight. Yen looks good and Hu looks decent. The fight is pointless though. The dialogue leading up to the scene is as stupid as it gets.

John Salvitti's the main bad guy, and this fight has his thugs beating a guy up. His thugs include a few normal looking Chinese stuntmen type actors, 3 Chinese women, and 2 American (or probably British) black guys, one of them being the extremely muscular Michael Woods. This fight is nothing special.

Takajo Fujimi fights a few thugs, and then Ken Lo steps in for a second. Great fighting from Fujimi. I don't know much about this actress, but she's better than a lot of female screen fighters of the time, like Sibelle Hu for example.

Next is one of the best fights of the movie. Out of nowhere Ken Lo shows up at some guy's place and starts beating up everyone in the room. They all get weapons, but that's no use against Ken Lo. Great stuff.

The next major fight has Michael Woods vs Sibelle Hu. The whole fight Woods is making mean faces and throwing stuff around, and Hu is just trying to get away. Good short fight.

Donnie Yen vs John Salvitti- this is the first of their 2 fights in this movie, and definitely the better of the 2. Yen has to beat up Salvitti's thugs first, but after that they throwdown. It's an amazing fight with super fast and crisp exchanges, and it goes on for a couple of minutes. But there is just one problem with it. They use these dinky little sound effects with no impact. It almost completely ruins the hard work they put into this fight. So it's the best fight of the movie, but it's ruined by the sound effects. Shame.

The last 20 minutes is all action. There are a lot of fights going on, but the editing isn't done very well. They go away from a fight for too long, and by the time they come back to it, you've almost forgotten that the fight is still going on. I can't complain too much though. Donnie is on fire and has a very nice fight against Michael Woods, and Salvitti and pretty much everyone else looks good. The very last fight between Yen and Salvitti is good, but it's not the super spectacular fight I was hoping for.

At the end of the movie there is a minute and a half of somewhat unspectacular outtakes. But it's still fun to watch. Obviously the idea isn't original, but I think there should always be outtakes or some kind of behind the scenes footage as the credits roll for martial arts movies. Or Sammo Hung, the best fight scene editor alive, would replay the best parts of the fight scenes. I hate it when the screen just freezes or goes black and the credits play.

3/5

The picture quality on the Tai Seng DVD is pretty good, but it's full screen. But the full screen doesn't really affect the action. Most HK movies of this time were 16:9 format, so making it full screen doesn't affect the action as much as it would if it were letterboxed (2:35:1). English is the only language option on this disc."

Quantity VS Quality Action

James Milton | CA | 06/05/2003

(2 out of 5 stars)

"Lots of fighting and explosions here but everything moves a little too fast (undercranking) and the story is nothing special. The DVD is also pretty weak. Donnie Yen fans will probably dig it."